Is the MMO and single player FF fanbase divided?

[Yasuhiro]

Thread might be a bit too meta even for general discussion

Going from just some conversations with irl friends and people in my LS Final Fantasy XIV is a lot of people's first and only Final Fantasy game, there's no general rule on what Final Fantasy should be your first I just thought it was really interesting that a lot of people start with this game considering this is pretty much a theme park with fan service for long time Final Fantasy fans.

Even on these forums you see posts from people who aren't familiar with the series when they say there's too much story when it comes to a shock to them that story since IV and arguably II has been FF's strong point, there's references they don't get and feel left out on ( people in my FC asking if Firion was a NPC in the game when they got his minion from veteran reward because they don't recognize him, it was pretty fun explaining who he is and all the other Final Fantasy II stuff to them that can be found in this game)

Even spell names were dumbed back down to Spell II, Spell III etc because the localization team didn't want to confuse new players.

People who are fans of the single player games also wont touch the MMO's for a lot of reasons. What are you thoughts on the fanbase being divided?
I could be very wrong just looking for opinions from the community

Straw Poll
http://strawpoll.me/7395173

[Rufalus]

People seem to get into XIV either because they like the FF series or they like MMO games but are done with World of Warcraft or whatever they came from.

I'm one of the people who didn't really play online games much in the past but I gave XIV a chance because I'm an FF fan. Yes I would have preferred Fira, Firaga kind of spell names.

A big part of what makes XIV work for me is the cross-hotbar interface which is very friendly to people with a more console gaming background. I couldn't easily play MMOs from other companies without a similar level of controller support which they do not provide. Cross-hotbar is one of XIV's greatest features.

[ZephyrMenodora]

I started Final Fantasy games as a child with Final Fantasy 1 and MMOs in 1999 with EverQuest 1. there is no divide for people like me who are long-time fans of both. In fact, this game is the perfect marriage or two loves.

As for the "dumbing down" of spell names - well this happened with Final Fantasy 2 (actually 4) on the SNES so this is nothing new for long-time fans in the US. That game didn't even trust us with half of the special skills the characters should have had.

[Mikita]

Voted!

FF14 is my first FF game.
And it's pretty much my first game, period... FF or not. ^^;

Playing a game by myself for hours was never an appealing idea to me. But FF14 struck the right balance between story and aesthetics -- plus having real people I can talk to and play with makes it immensely more interesting.

[Yasuhiro]

And it's pretty much my first game
.

Like your first video game ever played? That's really interesting, guess you have to start somewhere.

[Pirikko]

Even spell names were dumbed back down to Spell II, Spell III etc because the localization team didn't want to confuse new players.

That's pretty much the only reason I changed from the English to the German version (at least the text stuff, not the audio). The spells are still called Fire, Fira, Firaga and so on. French version's the same as well, I think. Weird how they only dumbed down the English verison!

[MilesSaintboroguh]

That's pretty much the only reason I changed from the English to the German version (at least the text stuff, not the audio). The spells are still called Fire, Fira, Firaga and so on. French version's the same as well, I think. Weird how they only dumbed down the English verison!

Well, just think about the fan base for a second and it'll make sense.

[Yasuhiro]

Well, just think about the fan base for a second and it'll make sense.

Going by the poll fanbase should know their FF lingo, since it's even been in games for kids like Kingdom Hearts, unless you mean the WoW transfers.

[Mikita]

Like your first video game ever played? That's really interesting, guess you have to start somewhere.

I've tried console games for a few minutes at a time mainly because the controller was passed to me. But I'm generally pretty bad at quick reflex types of games, so they usually took the controller back after shaking their head in disbelief/disgust. ^^;

FF14 is the first game I started playing where I actually wanted to play.

[dejavutwo]

I fall into the category of players who play because they like MMOs. Prior to this, the only FF game I played was X-2 that someone left in my ps2. Since I haven't played the older games, a lot of the references to them are lost on me. Having said that, I had to answer that I had played a FF game in the survey, even though I am ultimately unfamiliar with the rest of the series.